A Reckless Character eBook

Round about me the sun was still shining hotly and
dimly; but in the distance, beyond the rye, not too
far away, a dark-blue thunder-cloud lay in a heavy
mass over one half of the horizon.

Everything was holding its breath ... everything was
languishing beneath the ominous gleam of the sun’s
last rays. Not a single bird was to be seen or
heard; even the sparrows had hidden themselves.
Only somewhere, close at hand, a solitary huge leaf
of burdock was whispering and flapping.

How strongly the wormwood on the border-strips[75]
smells! I glanced at the blue mass ... and confusion
ensued in my soul. “Well, be quick, then,
be quick!” I thought. “Flash out,
ye golden serpent! Rumble, ye thunder! Move
on, advance, discharge thy water, thou evil thunder-cloud;
put an end to this painful torment!”

But the storm-cloud did not stir. As before,
it continued to crush the dumb earth ... and seemed
merely to wax larger and darker.

And lo! through its bluish monotony there flashed
something smooth and even; precisely like a white
handkerchief, or a snowball. It was a white dove
flying from the direction of the village.

Several moments passed—­the same cruel silence
still reigned.... But behold! Now two
handkerchiefs are fluttering, two snowballs
are floating back; it is two white doves wending
their way homeward in even flight.

And now, at last, the storm has broken loose—­and
the fun begins!

I could hardly reach home.—­The wind shrieked
and darted about like a mad thing; low-hanging rusty-hued
clouds swirled onward, as though rent in bits; everything
whirled, got mixed up, lashed and rocked with the
slanting columns of the furious downpour; the lightning
flashes blinded with their fiery green hue; abrupt
claps of thunder were discharged like cannon; there
was a smell of sulphur....

But under the eaves, on the very edge of a garret
window, side by side sit the two white doves,—­the
one which flew after its companion, and the one which
it brought and, perhaps, saved.

Both have ruffled up their plumage, and each feels
with its wing the wing of its neighbour....

It is well with them! And it is well with me
as I gaze at them.... Although I am alone ...
alone, as always.

May, 1879.

TO-MORROW! TO-MORROW!

How empty, and insipid, and insignificant is almost
every day which we have lived through! How few
traces it leaves behind it! In what a thoughtlessly-stupid
manner have those hours flown past, one after another!

And, nevertheless, man desires to exist; he prizes
life, he hopes in it, in himself, in the future....
Oh, what blessings he expects from the future!

And why does he imagine that other future days will
not resemble the one which has just passed?